This essay explores how the broadly understood notion of &#8220;equal opportunity&#8221; changed its meaning, from the traditional understanding as the absence of government action to favor any group, to a newer understanding as supporting government action to improve the results achieved by protected groups. This change occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and its impetus was a 1965 speech by President Lyndon Johnson, in which he employed the technique of dissociation to distinguish between apparent and real equality. This same approach was used in a number of the Johnson Administration&#8217;s domestic programs, but it also has provoked a backlash among whites